Challenges and Opportunities of Inventory Management Within a Medical Devices Supply Chain – Dissertation Proposal |

Research Proposal

The proposal title

Challenges and opportunities of Inventory Management within a medical devices supply chain and its impact on the public healthcare ‘end-customer’:  case study – Ability Matters”.

The company

The company picked for the purpose of the dissertation case study research is Ability Matters. The enterprise is a part of an international group of companies, the Ability Matters Group, with principal activities focused on supply products and services to those who require a medical enhancement on their mobility and accessibility. The Group emphasis on the comfort of living of the patients and increasing their independence by offering a wide range of products and services. The Group associated the brands such as OpCare, Otho Europe, Ability Matters UK, Ability Matters IE, LM Orthopaedic and Peach.

The business, Ability Matters, was established in 1889 in Dublin, Ireland. Through merger and acquisitions, with over 500 employees across organisations, the Group became of the industry leaders in prosthetic and orthotic solutions as well as mobility aids in the UK and Ireland.

The Group is successfully maintaining the Public Healthcare contracts which are allowed to have a huge impact within the public and private rehabilitation programmes domestically and abroad.

The Group headquarter and most of its business units are located in the UK and due to the biggest unknowns in terms of politic, social and economic, Brexit, adding the other dimensions to the existing implications of the organisation’s supply chain as the organisation have a strong presence internationally in locations such as Netherland, France or the Middle East.

The rationale for the proposed research study

The researcher will have the ability to consulting the objectives and issues as well as findings, if any, with the Senior Management of the organisation. As an employee of the company, the practical insight on the day-to-day operations supported by education and experience supposed to be sufficient to identify issues and opportunities, especially within purchasing and inventory management area of the organisational supply chain. The researcher has defined this area as critical to improves services and shortage the lead time of supplied goods.

The main scope of the dissertation case study will be around domestic functions of the enterprise, highlighting the dual complexity of operations: the goals and intentions of the supply chain in the privately funded organisation with contrast to a different needs and objectives of the public healthcare services. This business model must be able to effectively blend two completely different approaches to conducting procurement processes, triggering operation procedures, financing and budgeting or event reporting issues. The industry is very process-driven, however, decision-making functions can be quite lagging due to significant differences in statuses and purpose of the company and his main customer.

In this matter, the value chain must be optimised to reduce mistakes, returns and miscommunications.

The research case study gives the opportunity to provide the answer for the necessity and possibility, if any of improvements within the procurement and the supply chain processes, especially in Inventory Management, purchasing and reverse logistics.

Question 1: Articulate the rationale for your proposed research study including an explanation of the topic of interest, the objective of the research, background and relevance.

• Define what the problem/opportunity is that you wish to address.

Question 2: Proposed title of the dissertation

Question 3: Client organisation

• Even If you have not identified an organisation yet, please propose a suitable company or body to which the research is applicable.

Question 4: Proposed Research Questions

• Secondary Research Questions
• Primary Research Questions

Question 5: Critical analysis of Literature

Identify two relevant journal articles dealing with the subject and the research question(s) addressed. The articles you have selected should underpin your literature review and in particular the theoretical framework for your research. The articles should use different research approaches for a similar research question – for example; one author uses a positivist approach and the other
an interpretivist.

• As you are conducting an original piece of research, you should demonstrate that your proposed area has relevance to the literature and you need to identify your niche/question/hypothesis.
• Please attach the two journal articles to the hard copy of the paper.
• You must critically compare and evaluate the research approach in each article, specifically addressing the articles’ engagement with following factors: (1) management of theoretical assumptions, (2) ontology and epistemology, and (3) methodological approach. You must also identify the theoretical paradigm that is guiding the research approach of the articles.
• You will evaluate the worth and effectiveness of each of the chosen approaches (e.g. positivist and interpretive) in addressing the subject and the research question, and their contributions to knowledge. In your opinion, is the question in each of the articles the ‘right’ question to ask and address? Do the methodologies employ really help to answer the question? Does one methodology do a better job of answering the question than the other methodology?

Question 6: Intended Methodology: Give an explanation of how you plan to research the topic of interest

• Give an overview of your epistemological and ontological position and how it relates to the intended methodology.
• You will need to demonstrate an awareness of the methodological approaches and data collection tools available to you and show some understanding of which would be suitable for your research.

Question 7: Expected Outcomes

• Explain what you believe the results will reveal and how you think these outputs will impact the client organisation.
• Detail any assumptions including time horizon and delimitations of scope for your research project.